District Fourteen
by fulvenia
Summary: Short one-shot of how Prim passes away, and what she sees after she does.


Today, the sky is red. It is splashed with hundreds of souls that have been taken away, and the sorrow of it nearly crushes us.

Today, they walk into our arms. And the last one is a little girl.

She is young, thirteen or fourteen at most. Her hair is decorated into braids, and she wears a boring gray jumpsuit.

There is something different about her. We all feel it. And as she steps closer and closer, we see the shock in her eyes, and something else. Something a thirteen-year-old should not feel, ever.

She _understands_. She has accepted what has happened to her and she is ready. She doesn't know what for, but it doesn't matter.

Sometimes, it's okay not to know.

"Where am I?" she asks.

"Home," we answer. She looks confused, and so we try to make her understand.

"We are not in Panem anymore, little one. We are far away, so very far away that the world is hidden from our sight and we from theirs."

"You mean . . ." she bites her lip. "we're in another District? Out of Thirteen? Is this District _Fourteen_?"

"Yes," we tell her, because there is no other way. "We are in District 14. We are home."

She nods, but she does not understand. But it's okay, it's better not to know.

"What is your name?" we ask.

"Prim."

"Prim," we hold out our arms and wait for her to sink into them. "Welcome home, Prim. We are so sorry."

Her eyes land on one of us, and she smiles. It is a man, with bronze colored hair and sea green eyes and a lazy smile. He sees her too, and picks her up and kisses her forehead.

"Finnick," she whispers. "I saw her, I saw Katniss. Can I see her again?"

He shakes his head. "Not today, Prim. Not for a while."

She looks so upset that he has to say something, like a gift. A present to make her smile again. "Thank you, you know. For taking care of me in Thirteen."

Oh, her smile! It practically shines over us all, and we smile back. She turns to Finnick and whispers a gift of her own.

"Annie's safe, Finnick. She's in Thirteen, and she's okay."

His eyes betray so much sadness for such a short second that she doesn't even see it. But it disappears, and he smiles. "That's good. That's really good."

"There's someone else," we say to her. "Someone who'd like to see you."

Finnick lowers her to her feet, and we move away to show her.

When she sees him, she does not smile. She does not laugh.

She utters a single word, and across the entire universe it sounds like a scream.

_Daddy._

It is when they collide, soul into soul and spirit into spirit, that we stop and watch and wonder. We wonder why she must think life is so beautiful, when all it comes to is an end.

We wonder, and we do not know.

Sometimes, it's okay not to know.

When we have collected the little girl into our arms, we take her away and show her the skies and the clouds and the red paint that decorates them. She sees it and she frowns.

"Is it always like this?" she asks. "Is the sky always red?"

"No," we tell her. "Sometimes it is blue, or yellow, or green. And it is so beautiful."

"Will it be blue or yellow or green soon?"

"Yes. The skies are never red forever."

She nods, and we carry her away. And before she closes her eyes, we hear her whisper.

"Goodbye, Katniss."

* * *

Sometime later, we come back to her world, to Panem, to Twelve. First we carry the blond boy away, and then the girl with the arrows. When she walks into us, she looks around, as if knowing her sister will be there.

She is. She always has been.

And so we leave, farther and farther away. There is something so sad about how we've all left the world, but then we see a daughter and a father, a sister and a sister, and again we are left to wonder why they could think such things.

Someday, you will wonder. Someday, you will know.

Who are we? We are what is left. We do not live, we do not breathe. But every single one of us - Prim, Finnick, Katniss, Peeta – we all look down and watch and pour colors over the clouds.

District Fourteen, you could say. We are District Fourteen, and we are home.


End file.
